Tilt-shift photography. Or Diorama effect (sometimes it’s called).

Refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras, and sometimes specifically refers to the use of tilt for selective focus, often for simulating a miniature scene. (Wikipedia)

Some compact cameras, after Olympus first announced having this filter in EP-2, followed suit and introduced this mode as a special feature. It can be interesting, considering how you can make buildings, people etc look cartoon-ish. As if they are ‘ma-sak’ (toys).

“The process of achieving the diorama effect essentially works around shifting or reducing the depth of field in a shot,” explains Ben Thomas, a Melbourne-based photographer. “This can be done one of two ways; you can change the depth of field in the shot with a tilt-shift lens, or you can use Photoshop (or similar) to do the same thing, with a lot more freedom.

It’s not exactly easy to achieve the desired effect, but Same O’Hare, Aero Director/ VFX artist, produced The Sandpit – a time lapse, tilt-shift film of New York life (made up of over 35,000 stills in five days).

It’s cute The excellent miniature effect makes one wonder if these were real life photographs at all or not.

The Sandpit from Sam O’Hare on Vimeo.